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LITTLE BUILDERS 



LITTLE BUILDERS 

NEW THOUGHT TALKS TO CHILDREN 

BY 

DOROTHY GRENSIDE 



WITH A FOREWORD BY 

RALPH WALDO TRINE 



NEW YORK 

DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

214-220 EAST 2SD STREET 



[little builders] 
Copyright 1916 by Dodge Publishing Company 



3* 



* f £* 




AUG -9 1916 



&CLA437235 
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CONTENTS 

Foreword. By Ralph Waldo Trine . 

CHAPTER 

I. Where God is Dwelling . 
II. Your Body is a Coat . 

III. Every Little Thought a Thing 

IV. Thought-Giving and Thought- 

Getting .... 



V. How to Build a Castle . 

VI. The Joy of Work . 

VII. Brothers on the Path . 

VIII. A Sword of Shining Power 

IX. The Little Secret Key . 

X. Your Spirit-Self and Lower Self 

XI. The Building of Strength and 

Beauty 



XII. Courage 

XIII. Messengers of Love 

XIV. By Love We Serve 



PAGE 

7 
13 

21 

27 

37 
45 
53 
59 

67 

77 



101 
109 
115 



FOREWORD 

THERE is something that we of to- 
day know that was known to very 
few of those who have gone before us. 
There are very many, even of the older 
ones among us to-day, who do not know it. 
Children throughout all the world should 
be very happy to know it, while it may be 
of the greatest use to them. 

It is the wonderful fact that thoughts 
are forces — that each thought builds of its 
own kind. As we think, so we become. 
Like not only builds like, but like also 
attracts like. By our thoughts we are con- 
tinually attracting to us conditions and 
people of the same kinds as the thoughts 
which we entertain and live mostly with. 

It is a very old and a very true saying 
that birds of a feather flock together. It 



8 FOREWORD 

is because of this law — that like attracts 
like. There is nothing that comes by 
chance; and the more we know, the more 
clearly we realise this. 

Life is of our own making, whether we 
realise it or not. To make it — as we would 
have it — through an understanding and a 
wise use of thought, is surely the part of 
the wise, and, therefore, of the happy. 

Thoughts of love and good-will are 
sensed and are felt by others, and they 
in turn draw to us love and good-will from 
others. Thoughts of anger or hatred or 
ill-will arouse in others, and draw to us 
from them, thoughts and feelings of these 
same types. 

Thoughts of health and wholeness en- 
able the Life-force within to build healthy 
cell-tissue, which means health and whole- 
ness of body. Thoughts of weakness and 
likewise of fear make us weak within, and 



FOREWORD 9 

weaken our efforts in all we do. Thoughts 
of strength and of courage make us strong 
within, and make all our outward efforts 
more effective and successful. 

So within us lies the cause of whatever 
in time takes form in our lives. We alone 
are the makers of our own good or ill 
fortunes. 

It was our Master Who taught that 
God is within us — He dwells in the realm 
of our inner minds. To desire always and 
to believe that He directs and that He 
protects us in all our ways, makes His 
leading and His protection doubly sure. 

He also taught us that God is Love. 
The more, then, that we love and show 
our love for all people — wherever they 
may live in the world — the more we show 
that God lives in us. Deeds of kindness 
are the best means, and in most cases the 
only means, that we have of showing our 



10 FOREWORD 

love. And God would have us never fail 
in kindness and care for all of our dumb 
fellow-creatures ; for they are of His crea- 
tion just as we are, and abide in His love. 

It is, then, the thoughts that we enter- 
tain and live most continually with, which 
will determine our lives. The life will fol- 
low the thought without fail. 

Truly, therefore, children throughout 
all the world should be very happy to 
learn, and mothers should be very happy 
to teach them that their lives are to be of 
their own making — that they are building 
their lives by the thoughts they entertain. 

Ralph Waldo Trine. 

Sunnybrae Farm, 

Croton-on-the-Hudson, 
New York. 



BEFORE WE BEGIN 

SO YOU have come to me for a story. 
"A real one, please," you say. 

So we will leave the pixies and elves to 
play by themselves in the wood, — the mer- 
maids shall swim through the golden seas, 
and we will not look their way. 

For I have something for you which is 
better than a story. 

We will speak to-night of the real 
things, just you and I together. 



How do we build, little workman,, our Castle 
Beautiful? 

The ways are three. 

With tender thoughts^ with loving words, with self- 
less deeds we build, — 

Until a Castle rises that reaches up to God. 



12 



I 
WHERE GOD IS DWELLING 

I WANT you first to understand that 
I realty mean it when I say that God is 
everywhere and is within j'Ou. 

He is not tucked away in some great 
far-off Heaven, so that you wonder if 
your prayers can climb so high: He is 
not living only in a church, to which the 
people go to find Him once a week; He 
does not merely listen to you when you 
say your prayers, or suddenly keep watch 
when you do wrong. 

He is in the very air which now you 
breathe, He is in every stone or flower 
or tree, He is in all the fishes, birds and 
beasts, and in every little child you meet 
upon the road. 

13 



14 LITTLE BUILDERS 

"Is He in the flowers?" you ask me. 

Yes, I mean exactly what I say. He is 
in them all, because He made them by 
His Thought — He is their Life. This 
whole big world is just a Thought of 
God's — He made it by His Thinking. 

Life is another word for Thought, and 
both are words for God. It is wonderful 
that Thought can be so strong; but you 
too have this great gift growing, and 
although you cannot yet build living 
plants or trees, your thoughts will some 
day grow so beautiful that they will blos- 
som into lovely flowers. 

God's Thoughts are always beautiful: 
He makes no ugly house of bricks, but 
builds great trees with outstretched shel- 
tering arms, and fills with life each tiny 
leaf and twig. 

You must learn to love the trees, for 
God is truly living in their forms ; I would 



LITTLE BUILDERS 15 

not have you pass through life and fail 
to find Him there. Don't cut your name 
upon the bark, or break the boughs away. 
God built the tree, so try to see His Life 
within, and do not spoil a Thought of 
God's. Always remember that where you 
can see Life, that Life is God, and there- 
fore Life must be to you a precious thing. 

Each flower you pick is a little House 
that He has made to hold a tiny part of 
Him, for He does not leave a flower to 
grow alone — it could not live unless He 
dwelt inside. So while it is living He is 
dwelling there : it dies because He goes. 

It grieves me if you pick a flower and 
throw it on the path because you find 
another you like better, or because you 
tire of carrying it, for then you take away 
a little House in which God loves to dwell. 

So water the flowers in your garden if 
the sun has parched them up, and God 



16 LITTLE BUILDERS 

will stay a little longer in the Houses He 
has made. 

If you must pick them, do so then with 
tender, loving hands: yet I would rather 
that you left a daisy growing in the grass, 
just where God's Thought has rested. 

Of course I do not mean that you must 
leave each weed to grow, for weeds will 
choke and spoil a lovelier House of God. 
You must check them if they thrive within 
your garden, yet even weeds may live un- 
touched in wild and lonely spots. ... 

What other Houses can we find? 

You shall think and tell me. 

What! Are you shaking your head? 

Why, who is it that is sitting on the 
hearth-rug washing her face with her 
paws, and who is it scratching outside the 
door, hoping to join you here? 

Pussy and Jack. 

What beautiful little Houses we are 



LITTLE BUILDERS 17 

finding now, so full of life and under- 
standing! 

See the spider spinning her web, and 
the sparrow building her nest ! Go to the 
pool in the wood and watch the minnows 
play! See how Jack looks for his master 
and knows the click of the gate! Can't 
you see God peeping through the windows 
of each House? 

Because you know that He is there you 
must not harm the smallest thing that 
lives, unless it harms another life because 
it has not learnt as yet obedience to its 
Inner God. To take life means that you 
drive God from His House, and you 
cannot bring Him back again however 
much you try. 

So when you are big, and people speak 
to you of "sport" — which is the name they 
give to killing animals for "fun" — you 
must see the God within each living thing, 



18 LITTLE BUILDERS 

and say you will not hurt His House. 
This will show that you have learnt a 
lesson of much value, — that you know that 
the life within each bird or beast is the 
same great Life that looks more clearly 
through your windows, — those blue-eyed 
windows of your soul that God is shining 
through! 

You understand that every living thing 
is just a part of God: to hurt it must hurt 
you, for you are one with God. To help 
it brings you happiness — the REAL 
YOU I am speaking of, the You who 
lives within the House. 

You know now why I say that God is 
never far away, for He is the Life in you 
and in all that grows or moves or thinks, 
the Life in every leaf, or bird or child. 

Now you can see why ycm must keep 
your House spotless and pjire. 

If your hands and face are grubby, 



LITTLE BUILDERS 19 

wash them clean, for God is living in you. 

Yet not only must you keep the outside 
of that House as cleanly as you can, you 
must brush the cobwebs from the inside 
too. Those cobwebs come from unkind 
thoughts and angry words: they soil the 
House and make it dark and ugly, and 
God cannot use it as He would. 

We grown-up people take care of it 
for you while you are small, so that some 
day the Real You may speak through it 
to others who do not understand. . . . 

You must remember that nothing can 
hurt you which only hurts your House. 
When you were tired yesterday it was 
only the House that felt the need of rest, 
when you fell and bruised your knee it 
was only the House that felt the pain. 

Learn that such hurts do not matter: 
be brave and take them cheerily. Your 



20 LITTLE BUILDERS 

House can stand such outer knocks, and 
grows much stronger by the help of them. 

It is the inside cobwebs that we talked 
about that you must guard against, those 
unkind thoughts and angry words. Sweep 
them away with the brush that is yours! 
Keep the House sweet and clean for the 
God who lives within! 

"The brush?" you ask. "What brush 
can you mean?" 

I watch your dear, wide, questioning 
eyes. 

Of course you know that I must mean 
Your Will 



II 
YOUR BODY IS A COAT 

I WANT you to remember every min- 
ute of the day that this body of yours 
which seems so real a thing is only useful 
to you because it tells the Spirit that lives 
in it all the lessons that it learns. It is 
the means whereby your Spirit grows. 

This Spirit in you must be God, for it is 
Life, and Life we know is God. This is 
why Life seems so precious to us: this is 
why we teach our bodies to be servants 
that obey, for we know they must not be 
our masters. 

Suppose you wanted to go in the gar- 
den, and your feet refused and walked 
upstairs instead? 

That makes you laugh, I know, but that 

21 



22 LITTLE BUILDERS 

is just what happens when you are angry 
and cross. Your body is not doing what 
you wish, for the Real You inside is a part 
of God, and God is Love, to whom all 
quarrelling is wrong. 

When you lose your temper you have 
forgotten that you are Love, and your 
body then is like your feet that will not 
walk the way you want. 

So the next time you are angry, say to 
yourself, — 

"It is my body that likes to be cross, 
but I am not my body." 
Stop another minute, and say to your- 
self very slowly and quietly, — 

"I AM LOVE, I AM LOVE." 
And you will find that your angry temper 
leaves you, and that you want "to kiss and 
be friends"; because Love that is in you 
is stronger than your body. 

Love is like a King upon a throne, his 



LITTLE BUILDERS 23 

country is your body and you must let 
him rule it wisely and well. When other 
people are angry you must not be angry 
too; just because their bodies are fighting 
against their King, you must not let yours 
do the same. 

Try to help them. Try to see Love, — 
the King, — seated on his throne, however 
much his country is upset ; for if you look 
for Love it will help him to rule, not only 
in another heart, but in your own as 
well. 

You must look for Love in all your do : 
it is a law that is sure and true that any- 
thing that lacks Logre must be wrong. 

Yesterday you showed me the body of 
a thrush upon the garden-path. 

"See, it is dead!" you said. 

But now that we have talked together 
you know that it is not really dead, but 
that it has only laid aside a little coat that 



24 LITTLE BUILDERS 

it no longer wants, for every house is just 
a tiny coat. 

How would you like it if you always 
wore the same little threadbare coat, how- 
ever tight and small it grew? 

You couldn't wear the same one that 
you wore three years ago. Think how 
you have grown since then! Why, you 
would laugh if you tried to put it on! 

So it is laid aside, and you have a new 
one which gives you plenty of room to 
grow. 

Now you see why you cannot live within 
the same little body. It is because you 
grow too big for it. 

Do you understand, I wonder? 

It is because when Love grows bigger 
in your heart, you want a body that will 
not stop you when you try to help your 
brothers: as your eyes open and you see 
more of what Life means, you want a 



LITTLE BUILDERS 25 

body that will answer every greater 
thought. . . . 

If this is too difficult, you will under- 
stand it later on. . . . 

When you outwear a Body-Coat — when 
you have grown so big that it cramps and 
checks your Love — a Gentle Hand un- 
fastens it and you step out quite quietly 
and easily. This is what people call 
Death. 

Isn't it strange that they should be 
frightened to die? 

How silly to be afraid of anything that 
is helping them to grow! 

But I know that you will never be 
frightened, because you have learned that 
the Real You cannot die ; but that a worn- 
out coat is unbuttoned because it has 
grown too small. You need not fear to 
lose it, for you have many coats, each more 
beautiful than the last, finer and more 



26 LITTLE BUILDERS 

wonderfully made, and in each you grow 
a little wiser and more loving. 

So when you lay aside a coat it is a sign 
that you are growing, and we will not be 
sorry or sad when God takes away the 
coats of those we love. . . . 

The reason God has said "Thou shalt 
not kill/' is so that we may not tear a coat 
too soon from some one who is wearing it. 
You would not take a coat from a little 
child that you met in the street, and leave 
him to walk home without it in the cold? 

I know you would not. 

Then you must not kill the smallest liv- 
ing thing, or you will take its coat away 
before it is ready for another. 

So if you will always remember that 
your body is just a coat that you wear as 
long as it is useful to you, you will have 
learnt one of the very big lessons that Life 
can teach. . . . 



Ill 

EVERY LITTLE THOUGHT 
A THING 

SO YOU have come to me, to listen 
again in the firelight to things that 
are real and true. . . . 

I wonder if you know what happens 
when you think? 

I want you to understand that your 
thought is part of you, and just as every 
thought of God's can build a flower or 
tree, so your thought builds itself a form, 
a little shape. Every time you think you 
are making something quite as real as if 
you built it with your hands. 

And listen to this ! Here is a wonderful 
27 



28 LITTLE BUILDERS 

thing! When you think, you make that 
thought at once. 

If you build a castle on the sands, see 
how slowly it grows ! If you paint a pic- 
ture, what a long time it takes! But the 
very minute that you think, you make a 
shape that leaves you to float away upon 
the air. 

"Where does it go?" you ask me. 

Why, where do you think it can go, ex- 
cept just where you want to send it? You 
have made it with your own thought-stuff, 
you have filled it with a piece of your very 
own life, and it cannot go anywhere of 
its own accord, — it travels where you wish. 

If you throw a ball in front of you, you 
know that it cannot roll behind, so your 
thought can only go the way your will 
directs. 

Of all you think you build a copy, which 
does not last for very long because it 



LITTLE BUILDERS 29 

changes to the shape of the next thought 
that may come; but while it lives it is as 
real a thing as any flower or tree. 

When you think of some one, you make 
a form and fill it with your thought. It 
leaves you and goes straight to find him, 
and either helps or hurts. An unkind 
thought can hurt far more than any kick 
or blow, because it builds up other angry 
thoughts within the mind it reaches. It 
is such an ugly, ill-shaped thing! If you 
could see it you would always stop before 
you lost your temper, and would try to 
make instead a thought of Love. 

Love builds a thought that looks just 
like a flower with a rose-pink light inside ; 
how wonderful to think that you have 
power to build so beautiful a thing! 

Every time that you are unselfish you 
send one of these lovely little flower-forms 
into some one else's mind, and it helps him 



30 LITTLE BUILDERS 

to forget his own small wants, and to learn 
to be unselfish too. 

"But why can't I see my thought?" 

I knew you would ask me that. 

You cannot see it because it isn't made 
of the same kind of stuff as are all the 
earthly things. Your castles are built of 
bricks or sand, and your pictures are col- 
oured with paint ; but your thoughts make 
forms that you cannot see because they are 
built of something that is even finer than 
the air. 

You cannot see the air, can you? Yet 
you know that it is all around you, and 
that you are always breathing it in and 
out of your body. 

Hark, how the leaves rustle, and watch 
the trees sway to and fro ! You know that 
it is because the wind has risen, and you 
do not say that it is not there because you 
cannot see it. So although you may not 



LITTLE BUILDERS 31 

see this even finer stuff of which your 
thoughts are made, yet it is every- 
where. 

Each thought that you think, then, has 
a shape. It leaves you like a bubble that 
you blow from a basin of soapsuds, and it 
is coloured, too, according to the kind of 
thought that built it. Your kind thoughts 
shine like coloured lamps, but selfish ones 
are clouded with a dark and ugly fog. 

So now you will never think again that 
just because you do not speak aloud an 
unkind thought that it can do no harm. 
You know now that it hurts as much as 
any word or deed, because it travels 
straight to harm the person who has an- 
gered you. It lives near* him, tempting 
him to lose his temper, and to send out 
other angry thoughts like the one that 
came from you, and if he is unhappy or 
miserable that day, it may be just the 



32 LITTLE BUILDERS 

strength of your unkind thought that 
makes him angry too. 

So you see what a guard you ought to 
place upon your thoughts, as well as on 
your lips and hands. 

But let us suppose that you sent an 
angry thought to some one whose temper 
was so sunny that he couldn't be angry if 
he tried. 

"It wouldn't hurt him then," you say. 

No, but yet it would hurt you. 

For if you sent that thought to him, 
and he was so pure that it could not find 
its way into his heart, it would come back 
— the quickest and the shortest way — to 
the mind that sent it forth. It would come 
back to you. It would make you angry 
and cross again, and drive you to build 
more unkind thoughts, to speak more 
unkind words. 

So, if you are wise, when a thought of 



LITTLE BUILDERS 33 

anger comes you will not say to yourself 
that some one else has sent it, and that it 
cannot be your fault if you are cross : you 
will remember that perhaps it is your own 
thought that has journeyed home to 
you. 

But the black thoughts are not the only 
ones that travel; there are white ones that 
are stronger still. Why are they stronger, 
do you say? 

Because LOVE builds them. 

When you are older you will under- 
stand that no force on earth has building- 
power so great as Love. 

If you are sorry for some one because 
he is lonely or ill, your thought flies 
straight to help him bear his trouble. Such 
a radiant and lovely thought! If you 
could see it you would always stop a black 
one, and send him one of these instead. 

You must be eager to help by the power 



34 LITTLE BUILDERS 

of your thought, for you are old enough 
now, you know, to try. 

Let us think how you can begin. 

Perhaps you are at school, and some 
one is troubled because his sums will not 
come right. You can make him happier, 
although you cannot run across the room 
to comfort him. Quickly make a thought 
of help and send it to him. It will reach 
him although you do not say a word, and 
presently you will see him work again with 
greater courage. 

Perhaps Mother has a headache. 

Say to yourself: — "I will send her a 
thought of Love to make her well." 

You will find that Love will stroke the 
pain away. 

Perhaps a hungry child is crying in the 
street. 

Buy her some bread if you can ; but as 
you give it, wrap a thought of Love 



LITTLE BUILDERS 35 

around it, and you will do more than just 
bring comfort to her body. 

Oh, never think you are too small to 
help, while thoughts have so much power. 



IV 

THOUGHT-GIVING AND 
THOUGHT-GETTING 

THIS morning there were angry 
words, and some one cried. 

It grieved me, till I heard you say, — 
"Never mind, I'll kiss you better, just like 
Mother said." 

Then the sun shone in at my window 
because I knew that you understood, and 
I felt that you were turning away the 
angry thoughts to leave more room for 
tender ones to grow. . . . 

Some day you will tell others all that 
you hear from me. 

Not in just the same way, perhaps, for 
words are only little boxes made to hold 
our thoughts. 

37 



38 LITTLE BUILDERS 

Suppose some one gave you a box, but 
when you peeped inside you found it 
empty! What would you do? 

Why, throw the box away. 

So, as you grow, you must learn to look 
inside each box of words to find the 
Thought within, and soon you will build 
boxes of your very own to hold your 
thoughts. But you won't be much use to 
the world if you keep all your thoughts 
for yourself. No one will like your boxes 
then or bother to peep inside! 

You must give them away as fast as 
they come, for the more you give the more 
you get: great, fresh, strong thoughts that 
will help you to work, and to lend a hand 
to others. 

Don't be afraid to give them away, for 
fear that no more will come. Suppose you 
went down to the sea with a pail, and tried 
to empty the water away! 



LITTLE BUILDERS 39 

That makes you laugh, for you know 
that it would never grow less ; but there is 
just as much thought flowing through the 
world as there is water down by the shore ; 
you can fill your pail as full as you like, 
there is always plenty left. 

So fill it up full to the brim with 
thought, for that is the way to grow. 

Never forget to give your thoughts to 
others, for if they are selfish they live 
round you like a shell. They cannot 
travel far away for you have fixed them 
on yourself, and you think the same ones, 
over and over again ; because the shell has 
grown so hard that the new thoughts 
cannot strouggle through. 

If you do not break the shell by giving 
thoughts to some one else, people will say 
"How selfish he is! He thinks of no 
one but himself!" And their love will 



40 LITTLE BUILDERS 

pass you by, while yours lies sleeping in 
the shell. 

But if you send your thoughts to others, 
they will leave room for kindly ones to 
thrive, and the shell will melt away like 
snow that feels the sun. 

I think that every thought that is un- 
selfish makes a little peep-hole through 
which your Real Self shines; but if you 
only think of your own small doings, you 
will shut each peep-hole up, and your 
Lamp will fail to light the outside world. 

What do I mean by "your Lamp," do 
you ask? 

It is only a name for the REAL YOU, 
who shines within your house. 

But it is not only selfishness that shuts 
those peep-holes up: there is another and 
a sadder thing which has a greater power. 
It is the habit of unkindness — of Finding 
Fault with others. 



LITTLE BUILDERS 41 

When you are selfish it is yourself you 
harm, for you shut so much of the Great 
and the Beautiful out of your life; but 
when you think or speak of other chil- 
dren's failings you are hurting others, too, 
besides yourself, for you are making it 
easier for them to fail again ; you are pour- 
ing fresh strength into the faults you find, 
and thereby giving them a greater power 
to grow. 

If you think that some one has acted 
in a way that seems quite wrong to you, 
I want you to cease to think of it at 
all. 

Perhaps he may not yet have done the 
wrong, but the wish is growing in his 
mind. How sad, then, if your thought 
that blames be just enough to push him 
into it ! 

Think what a wonderful thing you can 
do, if you send him a thought of help so 



42 LITTLE BUILDERS 

strong that it reaches the evil wish that 
was there and turns it out of his mind. 

So cease to chatter about the faults of 
all your friends at school, and look for 
something in them which you can praise 
instead. If you look deep enough inside, 
there is always something waiting for your 
love. 

I want you always to seek the good in 
every one, and you will be doing a beauti- 
ful thing, — you will be helping that good 
to grow. . . . 

When you are big, perhaps you will 
think as Mother does, that the reason 
Good is stronger than Evil in the world, 
is because God always looks at it: — be- 
cause for Him there is no Evil, for when 
it meets His Eyes it changes into Good. 
Evil is only something which is growing 
into Good, although we may not under- 
stand the way by which it climbs. 



LITTLE BUILDERS 43 

God sees no Evil for He is All-Good, 
and as we look within each thing to find 
the little seed of Good it hides, nor do we 
grow a little nearer to His Great All- 
Goodness. . . . 

Now when you are thinking over all 
that I have told you to-night, you will 
see that it is only when your thought is 
strong and clear that it can do your bid- 
ding, for then you fill it with so much of 
you. If you think idly, your thought can 
only make itself a feeble shape with no 
great power for either good or ill. 

An idle thought drifts just like a little 
floating cloud ; but a thought sent out with 
a will to serve flies like a pointed arrow. 

So if you want to help, send one big 
thought instead of many helpless wishes, 
for wishes are useless in this world of ours. 
"I wish! I wish! " 

Why, be a man, and say— "I WILL!" 



HOW TO BUILD A CASTLE 

I HAVE often told you that you must 
try to send your thoughts of help to 
others, and to-night I want to show you 
why they have this claim on you. 

How do you start your prayers each 
day? 

"Our Father which art in Heaven." 

Yet He is not your Father only, for 
He is Father of all. How many other 
of His children are praying that prayer 
to-night! 

You remember that I told you that we 
are part of God's own Life, that no living, 
breathing thing exists except in Him? 

Yes, you remember. 

Now because we share this mighty Life, 

45 



46 LITTLE BUILDERS 

we all form part of one big family, and 
wherever you can see the Life you know 
that you have found another brother. 

Think how many brothers you must 
have! You couldn't count them even if 
you tried. 

Go for a walk, through a different town 
or village each day of your life if you like, 
and of every one you see you can say to 
yourself : — 

"HE IS MY BROTHER." 

And you will not be wrong. 

The more that you can feel that each 
one is your brother, the greater is your joy 
in giving Love. 

Of course I know that it is easy when 
you meet some one for whom you care. 
How your eyes shine as you say to your- 
self, so firmly and so proudly: — 
"HE IS MY BROTHER, MY 
BROTHER!" 



LITTLE BUILDERS 47 

But it isn't always so easy to say when 
you meet him in a dirty, weary body : you 
have to look so deep inside to find him in 
a roadside tramp. 

Yet you would not let a brother starve 
if you could find him bread, — you would 
not let a brother thirst if you could fetch 
him water from a stream! I know that 
you would run for him with eager, willing 
feet. 

But there are other things a brother 
needs besides just food and drink. He 
may be hungry for your help and thirsty 
for your love ; so just because it isn't bread 
and water that he lacks, you mustn't turn 
away and let him suffer want. 

Give him, then, this inner food, a 
brother's love, and as you try try a won- 
derful feeling of tenderness will grow 
within your heart. 

It is such happiness to think that every 



48 LITTLE BUILDERS 

one you meet is just your brother. If 
some one you know is sad because he has 
no one at home to share his lessons or play, 
you can tell him all that you have learned 
to-night: that brothers and sisters wait 
everywhere to share his joys and sorrows, 
that the whole big world is full of both, 
all asking for his love. 

I have said that you must try to help 
your brothers, because you then gain fur- 
ther strength to make your thoughts of 
love; but there is an even greater reason 
which I will try to tell you now. 

I would not have you drift through life, 
taking a pleasure when it comes and bear- 
ing pain as best you may, without some 
little signpost which will point the way to 
go. You mustn't think that you have 
come here just by chance, for every detail 
of this world is moulded by the thought 



LITTLE BUILDERS 49 

of God before He puts it in His 
Plan. 

Nothing is so small that it does not work 
for Him in just the way He means, and 
if at first it seems to spoil His Plan he 
sets it back a little until it fits in better. 

"What is His Plan?" you ask me. 

I can only tell you what I think : when 
you are big you may find another answer 
in your heart. 

I think His Plan is Unity, 

I think that He would have us part of 
His Perfection. I think that He wants 
to gather us so closely to Him that we can 
work as one, that all our separate thoughts 
can then be His Great Thinking, and all 
our separate loves His mighty Love. 

So you see that anything we do which 
draws us closer to each other brings us a 
little nearer to this Unity. Then are we 
part of God's Great Plan, and working 



50 LITTLE BUILDERS 

as He wills. But when we shut our greedy 
hands and will not help our brothers, we 
work against that Plan and break its Laws 
of Building. 

It is as if we are building a Castle, and 
we have all been given a tiny bit to finish 
by ourselves. No one can help us with 
it — we have to build alone. 

Now suppose that we shirk our work 
and leave it rough and unfinished? We 
spoil the look of that corner of the build- 
ing, however beautifully others build on 
either side of us. 

What if we paint our piece of work in 
a colour that clashes with all the rest? It 
may be a colour of which we are fond or 
one that is beautiful all alone, but it isn't 
in keeping here. 

To build a perfect Castle each must do 
his share faithfully and well ; not chipping 
at his corner just in any way he wills, but 



LITTLE BUILDERS 51 

working to make the Perfect Whole that 
God has planned. . . . 

You see my meaning now, for I have 
watched you while I spoke. 

You understand that though you try 
to reach God's Unity, you cannot rise 
there if your brother lags behind. How- 
ever carefully you build your corner of 
the Castle, the lazy work of others spoils 
it all. 

What must you do? 

Why, lend a hand and teach them how 
to build! 

They are your Younger Brothers, and 
you must guide them in their work. 

Point to the Castle that is growing, and 
show them that they must not spoil the 
Plan, and they will help a Building rise 
that reaches up to God. 



VI 

THE JOY OF WORK 

DO YOU think it strange that I 
should speak to you about the Joy 
of Work? 

Have you begun to look on it as weari- 
some and dull, as something to be hurried 
over, so that you may go back to your 
games and play? 

It is time that we spoke of the Joy of 
Work if this be so. 

Work is the Builder of Joy, because it 
is the Builder of qualities which alone can 
bring you Joy, and therein lies its value. 
It is not so much the work that you do 
that is of real importance, as the growth 
of Spirit that results from, it, for whether 
you grow strong of purpose or feeble of 

53 



54 LITTLE BUILDERS 

will depends upon the energy with which 
you labour, and not upon the kind of work 
that you may do. 

So you must not judge a man by 
whether the world has called him great 
or not, for some of the noblest of the 
world's great men have lived and died un- 
noticed. 

The world can never build a man, he has 
to build himself. 

Sometimes I have heard you say, "I 
wish I had something to do," yet there i f s 
work for every one, and if you are idle 
I am afraid that it is because you will not 
do the work that lies ready and waiting at 
your hand. 

If the work of a lif etime be hidden from 
you, there is always the task of to-day: it 
may not be just the work you would 
choose, but if it comes to you unsought 
you may be sure that it is the very work 
of which you are in need. 



LITTLE BUILDERS 55 

There is no work, however humble, that 
is not worth the doing, and it is always 
wise to bear in mind that if it seems weari- 
some or dull it is you yourself that make it 
so, for everything has interest if you know 
the way to find it. 

Every morning fix your mind on just 
one thing you mean to do, and at night 
look back over your day to see if you have 
carried out your purpose. If so, you may 
sleep with a happy heart, even if your 
work be nothing greater than the mending 
of a broken toy, or the watering of your 
garden. Make up your mind to do some- 
thing, don't idle away your time with no 
true aim or clear idea of what you mean to 
do, for idleness is the outcome of a lazy 
mind and the stumbling block that lies in 
the way of the Building of your Perfect 
Self. 

Work is neither great nor small, so long 
as it is needed. It has an inner spiritual 



56 LITTLE BUILDERS 

side and leads you to the Infinite Spirit 
of Good, so that even if your task be just 
the digging of a ditch or the darning of 
a sock, your Spirit may be climbing to the 
Hill-tops as you work. 

It is only through work that the Spirit 
of Good can shine through your outer 
shell, for work is the channel through 
which your Life-force pours; but every 
time you say "Impossible" and lay aside 
your tools, you block the outlet of that 
force and check its power. 

You must try to work for the love of 
the work and not for the praise of others. 
Don't look up to point out the amount 
that you have done ; but only pause to give 
a cheery word to the one who works beside 
you. 

I want you always to be one of those 
who gives help rather than one who claims 
it: to be one of the bearers of burdens 



LITTLE BUILDERS 57 

rather than one who needs another's help 
to bear. 

If you work with a will and not by 
halves, doing the simplest task earnestly 
and faithfully, it will help you to sow a 
seed of strength in the heart of a weaker 
brother, and you will make your corner 
of the world a little sweeter and a little 
happier, more filled with the Infinite 
Spirit of Good. 

There is no work that is unworthy of 
the God within if it be work for the com- 
mon good ; there is no task so mean that is 
not Spiritual and blessed if it helps the 
good to grow. 

If you miss greatness in your task it is 
because you have failed to see that it is 
linked to the work of every other human 
being, and that every one is working at a 
little part that forms a fragment of the 
Work of all the World. 



58 LITTLE BUILDERS 

So love your work and do it joyfully, 
for it shares the majesty of all great tasks, 
and the grandeur of all humble, simple 
toil. 



VII 

BROTHERS ON THE PATH 

I WANT to be so sure you understand 
that to help your Brothers is the Way 
to Happiness. Not only just the Brothers 
whom you love, but all the unknown ones 
as well, and even those who do you harm. 

If you hurt a Brother whom you think 
you do not love, you are hurting, too, the 
one you love the most of all, for the happi- 
ness of every one depends on that of 
others. 

You cannot travel on the Path which 
leads to God unless you take your Broth- 
ers with you as you go, 

There is no one who is not on this Path, 
but every one is walking at a different 
pace. Some are almost standing still, 

59 



60 LITTLE BUILDERS 

while more are running to and fro chasing 
the butterflies and picking flowers, or 
chattering to each other under trees. 
Others are hurrying in little spurts, only 
to sit and rest between whiles ; but there 
are some who walk so steadily, with their 
eyes fixed on the Hill that rises at the 
Finish of the Path. 

But none are journeying alone, for if 
you look closely at these people you will 
see that all of them are bound together 
with little silver ropes, so fine that they 
look like shining strands of frosted spiders' 
webs. 

So what do you think must happen if 
one sits down to rest? 

Why, yes, of course — he drags the 
others back. 

And suppose one walks a little faster 
than his Brothers? 

He pulls them with him as he goes. 



LITTLE BUILDERS 61 

But listen! If he joins with several of 
his Brothers, and they walk in a little com- 
pany together, there is a strength so won- 
derful in those little silver ropes! I wish 
you could see them twisted into one great 
shining strand! 

Do you understand this picture I have 
drawn for you? I mean that if you are 
lazy and waste your time, you are like 
the Brothers who sit by the way to rest, 
and the silver ropes pull others back who 
are trying to push ahead. If you make 
up your mind to work one day but forget 
about it the next, I think you are like the 
butterfly-catchers who hurry and rest be- 
tween. 

But if every day you say to yourself: 

"I will help my Brothers, and pull with 
my silver ropes," you are walking then so 
steadily toward the Hill. 

Brothers are helping you, too, you 



62 LITTLE BUILDERS 

know, — Brothers in front of you on the 
Path: their silver ropes are pulling with 
ever-increasing strength; but if you fail 
and lag behind, you make the burden 
heavier for their shoulders. 

There are lights that glow like tiny 
fires upon this Path, so many that you 
cannot count them all, for each little trav- 
eller has a lamp to light his way for 
him. 

But isn't this strange? He doesn't 
carry it in his hands, for hands he needs 
to save his Brothers from a. fall: — it is 
set within his forehead like a star. With 
every thought of love or friendly offering 
of help it lights his steps more clearly with 
its tender glow. 

So you understand that if he rests or 
runs unequally and thereby checks the 
speed of all his Brothers, his star gives 



LITTLE BUILDERS 63 

such a dim and feeble light that the Path 
seems dark and full of traps to catch un- 
wary feet. But as he learns to walk with 
firmer purpose, it shines so brightly on the 
Path that he cannot miss his way, and 
others near him share its soft, clear light, 
and gain a greater courage by its 
help. 

The weary little Brothers, whose feet 
are saved from jagged stones and beds of 
angry nettles because they walk within the 
circle of his light, mark how each day the 
star within him grows. 

It seems as if the light no longer shines 
from just his forehead; it seems as if he 
wears a shining golden coat which glistens 
through the outer earthly cover. 

You have seen the sun shine through 
the clouds, growing at last so bright that 
you have had to turn your eyes away. So 
does the golden coat shine brightly 



64 LITTLE BUILDERS 

through the veiling of the body, lending 
its light to younger stars that as yet have 
only learnt to glimmer in the dark. . . . 
If we could watch the Path with the Great 
Eyes of God, we should see that it shows 
a winding course at first, lighted by these 
endless little stars that glitter like a stretch 
of diamond frost. But as it straightens 
to the Hill it alters to a path of Shining 
Gold, for all those separate stars unite to 
form a Mighty Sun which wraps the Hill 
in Light. ... 

Each little star is lost in every other, yet 
finds itself within the Sun of God's Great 
Love. . . . 

Do you understand my tale of stars, and 
the story I have weaved for you of Broth- 
ers on the Path? 

I think you do. 

The Path is just your Life which leads 
you up to God. 



LITTLE BUILDERS 65 

The Real You is the star which gleams 
upon your forehead, the star which cannot 
shine through selfish w r ants and wishes, but 
glistens like a coat of gold if your ways 
are Ways of Love. 



VIII 

A SWORD OF SHINING POWER 

JUST for to-night we will not speak of 
Brothers : we will not seek fresh ways 
to give them help: — just for to-night we 
will turn our thoughts to you. For you 
cannot show your brothers how to build 
a Castle unless you build within yourself 
as well; you cannot give them courage to 
tread the path of Service unless they feel 
that you are strong to help. 

"But how can I build within myself?" 
you ask. 

You are building every minute of the 

day, with every thought or deed you add 

a little to your work; but whether you 

build a Castle Beautiful or just an ugly 

67 



68 LITTLE BUILDERS 

barn depends upon the kind of Thought- 
Bricks that you make, and the Will with 
which you labour. 

You have often watched a builder, 
smoothing the mortar with his trowel as he 
puts each brick in place. You have a trowel, 
too, with which to build your Castle Walls, 
and you cannot work without it. 

Your trowel? 

Of course I mean your Will. 

It is ever in your hand, but as you learn 
to use it faithfully and well, it changes 
from a builder's tool to a soldier's sword 
of shining power. 

If you remember that it is a part of 
God's great Will, you understand the 
secret of its strength. 

Each earthly thing can only keep its 
present form because God wills : He holds 
it just as long as He desires, and when He 
breaks it up He uses every piece to build 



LITTLE BUILDERS 69 

another shape. Nothing is wasted in His 
work, because He builds so perfectly that 
He can find a use for all. 

Each little speck of dust that blows 
across the road, or falls between two 
grinding rocks, is moulded into other 
forms. As He leaves each House it 
changes into dust, but that dust He takes 
to build another that is filled with greater 
beauty. 

Because your Will is part of His, you, 
too, can build with it; but only when it 
does the work that You — the Real You — 
set it. It must be your trained and willing 
servant, your Sword of Shining Power. 

You would be angry if you rode a pony 
that would not go the way you wished, but 
took the bit between its teeth and galloped 
as it liked. 

Yet if you cannot check your Will, and 
make it do exactly what you want, it is 



70 LITTLE BUILDERS 

like that little pony that will not answer 
to the reins. 

I want you always to do a thing because 
the Real You wishes it. I want you 
to learn to use your Will to build your 
Castle Walls. 

How can you train your Will to do your 
bidding? 

Let us find first the way that it must 
grow. 

It must grow strong, not feeble : it must 
obey and not rebel: it must be firm with 
courage to work on in the dark. You 
must have faith in it, and know that it 
cannot fail ; because you know that it is a 
part of God's own Will, and the means by 
which the Real You climbs a little nearer 
up to God. 

"It must grow strong, not feeble/' 

How can it grow in strength? 

If you do not use an arm or leg, it will 



LITTLE BUILDERS 71 

waste away and lose all power to serve 
you. 

In just the same way, if you do not use 
your Will, it will grow rusty and feeble, 
and fail you when you need it most. So 
the first thing you must do is to learn to 
use your Will, to give it exercises just as 
you swing your clubs or drill to help your 
body to grow strong. 

So here is an exercise that you can prac- 
tise to-morrow. 

Think of one thing at a time. 

If you are putting on shoes, let "Shoes" 
be all your thought: — if you are doing 
your sums, don't think of your games 
after tea, but think of "Sums" and nothing 
else until you have finished them all. 

To fix your mind on just one thing will 
help your Will to grow. So no matter 
how easy or simple your task, turn all your 
thought upon it, for when little vague 



72 LITTLE BUILDERS 

thoughts drift through your mind you 
can't do the smallest thing well. You will 
never do anything great until you can do 
something small, — you will never conquer 
a kingdom until you can rule a thought. 

All great things are small in beginning, 
— the acorn grows into the oak, and the 
greatest man is he who can rule his Will 
in the tiniest things of life. 

There is another way in which we said 
your Will must grow. 

"It must obey, and not rebel." 

So let us find an exercise to teach it to 
obey. 

Finish a thing when once you start. 

Sometimes this is hard, I know. 

Grown-up people think so, too, unless 
some one has helped them when they were 
small, as I am trying to help you now. 

If you finish each thing as well as you 



LITTLE BUILDERS 73 

can, instead of leaving it half done because 
a pleasure calls you, or because it seems 
too hard, you build a brick of perfect shape 
within your Castle Walls. 

Make up your mind in the morning to 
do some special thing. Perhaps your 
garden is full of weeds, or some one ex- 
pects a letter. 

Weed your garden until it is neat, and 
put your tools away, write your letter and 
finish it off, don't leave it until to-morrow, 
and you will do more than tidy your gar- 
den or even please a friend ; you will start 
to fashion your Will to a Sword of Shin- 
ing Power. 

• • • • • 

There is one more way, remember, by 
which your Will can grow. 

"It must be firm with courage to work 
on in the dark." That is the hardest of 
all, and yet just because it is so difficult, 



74 LITTLE BUILDERS 

you will find that it is the royal road by 
which your Will grows strong. 

It is easy enough to work bravely on 
when things go right for you, when you 
can see your Castle rising, and the sun 
is shining as you mould your bricks. But 
it isn't so easy if dark days come, and you 
find that some of your bricks aren't quite 
the right shape, and they have to be thrown 
away. Sometimes you have to pull your 
wall down and begin to build again, and 
you feel so sad at the waste of time that 
you want to lay down your trowel, and 
leave your Castle Building. 

Then is the time to be firm with cour- 
age, to work on in the dark! 

Shape your bricks as well as you are 
able in those dusky days, lay them as truly 
straight as the lack of light will let you: 
and as you labour at your work, faithfully 



LITTLE BUILDERS 75 

and bravely, the Hand of God will one 
day lift the purple curtains of the night, 
and gently place within your hands a 
Sword of Shining Power. 



IX 

THE LITTLE SECRET KEY 

IT GREW late at our last little fireside 
talk, and I had to leave so much un- 
said. Shall we pick up the threads to- 
night? 

Now that you know of the power that 
lies in your Sword of Will, you must be 
careful that you do not waste or fritter 
it away. 

How can I waste my Will, do you ask? 

Every time that you fret because things 
do not happen just in the way that you 
would like, you are wasting so much Will. 

Let us suppose that you are going out 
with some one, and you get impatient be- 
cause you are ready first and you find that 
you must wait, — then do you fritter away 

77 



78 LITTLE BUILDERS 

the strength of your Sword of Shining 
Power. 

Or perhaps a fly is buzzing on the 
window-pane, and watching idly you for- 
get to work whole-heartedly : then do you 
split your thought in two, and halve its 
strength. 

I think what a splendid chance you have 
to train your Will if some one talks in the 
room where you are learning a lesson ! 

Don't stop to grumble or to complain 
that you cannot do your work, but fix your 
mind firmly on your task, and when you 
can work as easily in a room full of people 
as you can when you are quite alone, you 
will have learnt one of the first lessons that 
must be mastered if you would grow to 
be a man who does great things. 

You must not think that failure over 
little things like these can make no differ- 
ence to your growth of Will, for it is the 



LITTLE BUILDERS 79 

little happenings that count. Big things 
come seldom in our lives, and when they 
do, whether we meet them bravely or 
shrink from facing them depends on 
whether we have trained our wills to 
grapple with the smallest details of a day. 

It isn't the one great deed that shapes 
our will, but all the small forgotten acts 
that serve to test and strengthen it. 

Think of the minutes of each hour ! We 
live them one by one, yet it is the manner 
of that living that gives the hour's result. 

Think of the hours of every day ! Upon 
the action of each one depends whether the 
day be well or badly spent. 

Think of a year of life! It is built of 
all those days and hours and minutes 
which seemed so small and trivial as they 
slipped unnoticed by; but if the year be 
great with deeds, it is because the minutes 
were spent grandly too. 



80 LITTLE BUILDERS 

To be worried or cross if things go 
wrong means that you scatter your power, 
but when courage is yours 'in all you do 
and you have learnt "to work on in the 
dark/ 5 you will smile as you think of 
earlier days, and wonder why you had so 
little faith in the strength of your Shining 
Sword. 

To have no faith in your power to win 
means that already you are half way on 
the road to failure. 

If you say to yourself as you start your 
work, 

"This is so difficult," 
you build a mountain in the way, up which 
you have to climb ; but face it bravely, and 
it will shrink to a little grass-strewn hill, 
and you will laugh to think you feared 
it. 

Even if your task seems quite beyond 
your strength, what does it matter? You 



LITTLE BUILDERS 81 

have been given it as a means whereby 
your Will may grow, and whether you 
succeed or fail is not the point that really 
matters, as you will understand when you 
are big. 

Work bravely on, and do the best you 
can. 

Don't be afraid to begin over and over 
again; but every time you start afresh re- 
member — for this is the little secret key — 
to keep the thought so firmly in your mind 
that success is bound to crown your work. 

Say to yourself, 

"I can do it if I will." 

Put all idea of failure right away from 
you, for failure comes to those who fear 
it. Perhaps ninety-nine times you may 
start and fail, but on the morning of the 
hundredth time you will find a new way 
to do your work, fresh thought will come 
to you and will make your road so plain, 



82 LITTLE BUILDERS 

that you will wonder that you could have 
been so blind those ninety-nine times be- 
fore. 

If your Will be strong enough you are 
bound to win in the end. You can make 
your own future as you will, and build 
your own life. Nothing can stop your 
progress, only your own small self — noth- 
ing can bar success from you, except your 
thought of failure. 

How wonderful to think such power is 
lying in your hands ! Yet I would rather 
that you did not use it to build entirely 
for yourself. I would like to see you 
choose the better way, to watch you build 
what happiness you can for others rather 
than yourself. Your Sword of Shining 
Power will thereby grow as strong as if 
you willed for selfish gain, and you will 
find a strange thing happens : for as you 
build a House of Happiness for those you 



LITTLE BUILDERS 83 

love, a little Secret Place of Joy will rise 
unnoticed close at hand for you. 

But if you strive for pleasures for your- 
self with not a thought of giving them to 
others, they will not build you Happiness 
or Joy; they will shut you in four prison 
walls, so thick that the Light of Brothers 
cannot enter in. 

Like a miser you may grasp success, 
but though all power and riches may be 
counted yours, yet if you have no Brother 
with whom they can be shared you will 
grow sick and weary of your treasures, and 
will beat your wings against your sunless 
prison walls. 

It is easier to build a prison than to find 
a way to leave it ; it is not until your Will 
has learnt to fashion a little key called 
"Loving Help," that you can unlock your 
prison door, and pass into the Sun of Com- 
radeship and the Greater Joy of Giving. 



YOUR SPIRIT-SELF AND 
LOWER SELF 

DO YOU understand, I wonder, that 
you have two separate selves 
within you? One Self that urges you to 
do all that you can to bring happiness and 
joy to others, and another that seems petty 
and small in its desires, and wrapped up 
in its own pleasures and pains? 

The self that thinks nobly and purely 
is your Higher Self, who is a part of 
God's own Power and Life : the Real You 
who has been growing throughout long 
ages of time, and who will not rest until 
you reach to Perfect Beauty. 

The other Self is the Self of the Body, 
85 



80 LITTLE BUILDERS 

a Lower Self that is made up of all your 
beliefs and ideas which are not really true 
or lasting, because they are not your own 
that you have built, but those that have 
been given to you by the thoughts of other 
people. 

The Real You is the Spirit-Self that lies 
deep within, so deep that you might almost 
wonder sometimes if it is really there, and 
yet it is the Self that you must learn to 
trust and follow, for it is the very Spirit 
of God. 

It is a Self that can do no wrong, for 
evil cannot live where Spirit dwells. It 
is a Self that is All Love, All Tenderness, 
All Joy and Peace, for it is God. 

Isn't it wonderful to think that your 
body is really and truly the "Temple of 
God?" It makes you understand how 
purely you should live, so that it may be a 
"Temple" worthy of the name. 



LITTLE BUILDERS 87 

I know that when you enter a church 
you try to leave all your lower thoughts 
outside, because you feel that you are com- 
ing close to the Presence of God ; but this 
little body of yours is a greater Temple 
than any church of brick or stone, and you 
must keep it worthy of the God who 
dwells within. 

You must remember that the Spirit- 
Self of Infinite Power and Purity and 
Strength is not possessed by one and lack- 
ing in another, it is the Hidden Treasure 
of all. 

Sometimes we cannot find it in another 
because his thoughts are turned toward 
the wants and wishes of his Lower Self, 
and he has forgotten all about his Spirit- 
Self that is so strong in Power. Often 
you will find that he grows tired and ill, 
because he is depending upon his Lower 
Self: he is like a man who tries to push a 



88 LITTLE BUILDERS 

motor up a hill because he does not under- 
stand the way to drive. 

Anger and Hate and Selfishness are 
only a part of the Lower Self, and are 
quite separate from the Real True You 
which is built of the Infinite Spirit of 
Good. But every time that you try to fol- 
low the guiding of the Spirit- Self who 
teaches Peace and Love you begin to 
understand that what you have always 
called yourself is not really a part of you 
at all, and that your everyday feelings and 
wishes have nothing to do with that won- 
derful Real You which I speak of as Your 
"Spirit-Self." 

So when you are sick and ill, or miser- 
able and unhappy, I want you to remem- 
ber that it is only the Lower Self which 
is calling so loudly: I want you to turn 
all your thoughts toward your Spirit-Self, 
and it will lift you out of your sickness and 



LITTLE BUILDERS 89 

smooth away your troubles, because only 
good can live where the Life of God is 
resting. 

Every thought of Love or Tenderness 
is the voice of your Spirit-Self speaking, 
every feeling of irritation is an effort of 
your Lower Self to limit and stop you in 
your growing, so you must firmly and 
strongly make up your mind to shut your 
ears to the calling of your Lower Self, and 
to follow only the voice of the Spirit that 
speaks within. Many a time you may fail, 
but pick yourself up cheerily after every 
stumble, for no one has ever managed to 
climb without some slipping back. If the 
day be far from smooth and you begin 
to get cross or angry, say to your- 
self— 

"I am the Spirit of Love, 

Love is my Spirit-Self," 

and you will find that your Lower Self 



90 LITTLE BUILDERS 

is quieted, and that your Spirit-Self will 
guide you safely through your day. 

You must remember, too, that while 
your Lower Self lies sleeping, your Spirit- 
Self is working still. It cannot sleep be- 
cause it shares the Life of God. 

How can God sleep? So long ago He 
made the sky, the land, the sea, and His 
Eyes had always watched them since. If 
He slept, all Life would slumber too until 
He stirred again. 

As our Spirit- Self is part of Him, it can 
no more lie sleeping in our bodies than 
can our life blood cease to flow until the 
heart stops beating. Open your eyes, and 
see God's Spirit moving everywhere, 
God's Life that needs no sleep nor 
rest. 

I want you to be very careful of your 
thoughts before you go to sleep, because 



LITTLE BUILDERS 91 

I think that your Spirit- Self will often act 
upon the last thought in your mind. 

Do you understand exactly what I 
mean? 

I mean that if you fall asleep with some 
wish in your mind, you tend to work for 
it the whole night through, and because the 
Real You is a Fragment of God's Spirit, 
you have a greater power to gain what 
you desire while your Lower Self lies 
sleeping and cannot hamper you. 

So think your purest thoughts as you 
lay your head upon your pillow : try to for- 
get your earthly wants and wishes, and 
make up your mind to bring what happi- 
ness you can to some one who is needing 
both your comfort and your love. 

You can reach your brothers while your 
body sleeps, because to think of them will 
carry you to where they are at once. 



92 LITTLE BUILDERS 

Thought has such power within the World 
of Spirit that it can carry you to where 
you will. 

Think of the happiness that you can 
bring to some one who is miserable to- 
night. 

Say to yourself as you close your eyes, 
"I will help him with my love/' 
and as your body sleeps, the Ileal You 
will spread two Wings of God and carry 
you to your brother through the night. 

You need not fear that you will lose 
your way, for there are no dark paths 
where Love is calling. 

"Little sad brother," you will say, "you 
cannot be lonely while God is resting in 
your heart and mine. 

"Little sad brother, dry your eyes, and 
take the Love I bring." 



XI 

THE BUILDING OF STRENGTH 
AND BEAUTY 

YOU will find a verse in the Bible 
which tells you that "As a man 
thinketh, so is he"; and to-night I want 
to show you as plainly as I can that you do 
really build yourself by the power of your 
mind, and that even your health and 
strength and very looks depend upon the 
way you think. 

It is your mind that really shapes your 
body, for although when you are young 
an ugly, unkind thought may seem to leave 
no trace behind, yet if it gives birth to 
others until you are always building 
thoughts that are unworthy of your Spirit- 
Self, in time they will write their story so 

93 



94 LITTLE BUILDERS 

plainly on your face that people will not 
have to wait to hear you speak to know 
that you have no gift of Happiness to 
bring them. 

But if your thoughts are loving and un- 
selfish, little Shining Messengers from the 
Real You within, when you are older 
Beauty will speak so strongly from the 
tender lines of your face that people can- 
not fail to feel the Joy with which you 
bless them. 

It is natural for you to turn from all 
that is ugly and decayed, because planted 
within you is the Spirit's Love of Beauty 
and Perfection. 

If a flower be beautiful, it is because it 
grows in the way that God has planned, 
and the Life within is shaping it until it 
reaches to its full-time blossoming. That 
is the way that you are meant to grow, and 
if your body be weak or ill, it is because 



LITTLE BUILDERS 95 

it is not working as the Life within would 
have it. 

You know that in a lake you can see the 
surrounding hills and trees mirrored in its 
quiet depths, and that if a breeze ruffles 
the surface of the water it blurs the beauty 
of the pictured hills. 

In just the same way, your body, which 
seems so real a thing, is only the reflection 
of your mind, and when it is disturbed or 
ill it is because it is not reflecting a per- 
fect picture of the mind ; it is as if a little 
breeze had ruffled the quiet lake and 
"blurred the beauty of the pictured hills." 

Whether you are weak and ill, or 
healthy and strong, depends upon the 
kind of thoughts that you allow to rest 
within your mind. "Thought grows by 
Thought." Remember that, and you will 
understand that the way to be healthy and 
brave is to think of Health and Bravery, 



96 LITTLE BUILDERS 

and the way to be weak and ill is to fear 
that weakness and ill-health may come to 

you." 

So learn to put every fear of pain or 
illness right away from you. 

If you are weary with the heat and 
disinclined to work, don't think to your- 
self, "How hot it is! — I cannot do my 
work" ; for such a thought will make your 
body all the weaker. 

If youare tired with a long day's work, 
turn the thought of weariness out of your 
mind and say to yourself: 

"My Body is made of Strength, 
For My Spirit is Strong," 
and you will be filled with a wave of 
strength, and weariness will leave you. 

Perhaps you are afraid to enter a room 
that is dark, or sometimes perhaps you 
wake in the night trembling at shadows 
that lie across the room. 



LITTLE BUILDERS 97 

"O never strike sail to a fear," as a great 
man has written. Remember that "as a 
man thinketh, so is he," and that if you 
think bravely your body will answer and 
become built upon such lines of Courage 
that however dark the night or deep the 
shadows, no Fear or Cowardice can rest 
within you. 

But your body will never be able to 
reflect your thought until you have learnt 
to tidy your mind. 

People forget, or perhaps they have not 
learnt, that if they have untidy minds they 
will have untidy or unhealthy bodies too. 

So that is why I say that you must learn 
to tidy your mind. Give up trying to 
think of five or six things at once, for such 
thinking is but vague and valueless and 
when reflected in your body will make you 
act in a hasty, undecided way. 

Begin in little ways to tidy your mind 



98 LITTLE BUILDERS 

and body too. Is your bookshelf as neat 
as the first day that it was given to you, 
when you arranged your stock of books 
so proudly and so carefully? 

Are your shoes put neatly away, and 
can you shut your cupboard door, or is 
it full of rubbish? 

Do such things seem so small to you? 
They are not so. They are reflections of 
your mind, and nothing can be small or 
mean which teaches your Spirit ways in 
which to grow. 

When you have learnt to keep your 
books and your cupboard tidy and neat, 
you will find that you are keeping your 
thoughts in order too; not letting them 
stray from one thing to another in any 
way they will, but making the thought 
work with the deed until the task be done. 

So tidy your mind, and "shut your cup- 
board door." Turn out the thoughts that 



LITTLE BUILDERS 99 

have crept from their proper places, to 
make plenty of room for better ones to 
grow, and you will find your mind re- 
flected in a body that is radiant with 
Strength and Beauty too. 



XII 

COURAGE 

I HAVE spoken to you sometimes of 
the need you have for Courage, for all 
Success and Happiness depend on its 
possession. 

Yet you must not think that I am only 
speaking of the Courage that can face a 
sudden danger. I would have you learn 
such strength of mind that fear can gain 
no mastery in the smallest happenings of 
your life. There is cowardice of thought 
as well as action, and if you fail when some 
great danger presses it is because you 
could not meet in thought the little daily 
tests. 

Whether Courage walks with you to 
help you through your day, or Fear is your 

IOI 



102 LITTLE BUILDERS 

companion who will ever drag you back, 
depends entirely on yourself, on whether 
you have learnt to be the master of your 
mind so that it is always obedient to your 
will. 

Unless you are the master and can un- 
derstand that it is Fear alone that checks 
and cramps your powers, you will do little 
in this earthly world or in the world of 
Thought. 

See that your store of Courage grows 
bigger every day: there is no need in life 
so small that you may not use it as a means 
whereby that store may grow. 

Put your whole mind into your work, 
be determined that you cannot fail, and 
you will find that you have set your feet 
upon a path that leads you to success ; but 
if you start half-heartedly, allowing a 
thought to cross your mind that your 
strength may be unequal to your task, you 



LITTLE BUILDERS 103 

will sow a seed of Fear which perhaps will 
grow into a weed to choke the Flower of 
Courage that was planted close at hand. 

You must remember that all Success 
or Failure depends far more upon your 
thoughts of Courage or of Fear than upon 
any outside help that may be given you, 
for I have told you of the way in which 
your thought goes out to mingle with 
the great Thought-Currents of the 
World. 

If you work bravely and with courage, 
your thought calls to all the thoughts of 
Courage that others are building into 
their work, and not only does it help to 
strengthen them, but it gains from them an 
added power to carry back to you. But if 
you work with a fear that you may fail, 
that fear travels as surely as did the 
thought of Courage until it meets the 
thoughts of others who are fearing too* 



104 LITTLE BUILDERS 

and they crowd upon you as you work, 
bringing failure in their train. 

You cannot gain Courage until you 
learn to trust yourself and to depend upon 
your own unaided work. Make your own 
decisions, and try to find a way to do 
things by yourself instead of always seek- 
ing help from other people. Such knowl- 
edge that you learn you will not easily 
forget, and also you will gain confidence in 
your powers, which will be of greater 
value than you think in later life. 

Trust in your own small self and power 
to do, and you will find that you begin 
to gain the trust of others, which is a very 
sweet and precious treasure to possess. 

Make up your mind that nothing can 
shake your Courage, determine that Fear 
shall have no power to touch you, for your 
thought can make or mar your work. 
Your Courage or Fear can win or lose 



LITTLE BUILDERS 105 

you all material things as well as gifts of 
Spirit. 

It is not lack of power that makes you 
fail, but lack of knowledge of the way to 
use the power. 

Why should you fear? 

You are a part of One Great Life, a 
Sharer of the Strength that binds the 
worlds together, and when you have made 
this thought your own and built it into 
yourself, there is no limit to the power you 
may possess. 

Courage uplifts and bears you over the 
stones that lie on your pathway up to 
God. It is only fear that makes you 
stumble and dread the roughness of the 
Climb. 

Don't be content to do only those things 
which lie easily within your present power. 
Strike boldly out and test your strength. 

You can never learn to swim if you keep 



106 LITTLE BUILDERS 

one foot on the ground, you can never 
learn to do big things unless you risk a 
little. 

Try to grow a little every day, facing 
bravely all that comes, and if your troubles 
press on you, don't give Fear the power 
to make them heavier. Call on your 
Courage and face them as they come. 

Sometimes we are afraid because we 
do not meet our troubles singly, but see 
them in thought all massed together in 
one great mountainous load, yet we must 
remember that we only have to face them 
one by one. 

The Courage that you need is only just 
enough to do the next thing well, so turn 
the whole of your thought to the work 
of mastering it, and do not think of all 
those other tasks which lie beyond. 

All that you are asked to do is just one 
thing at a time. This may sound easy 



LITTLE BUILDERS 107 

until you try, and then I think you will 
understand what a very big lesson it is that 
has been given you to learn. 

If while you do your present task your 
thoughts are turned in doubt upon the 
next succeeding one, I am afraid that you 
will find that you may fail in both; for 
the Secret of Success lies in the power to 
turn the whole of your mind upon the 
doing of one thing at a time, however small 
or trivial it may be, and then to pass cheer- 
fully and willingly to the next duty with 
no lingering or backward thought. 

Your Thought of Courage is a magnet 
that can draw success to you, for it attracts 
others of its kind, until you are filled with 
a wonderful feeling of strength, and you 
find that you are drawn more and more 
into the company of those who are growing 
strong too, for that saying which you 
know so well, "Birds of a feather flock to- 



108 LITTLE BUILDERS 

gether," is based on a truth more deep than 
you may understand. 

While you are growing in Courage, per- 
haps you may meet some one who is nerv- 
ous or afraid. 

What must you do? 

Send him all your thoughts of Courage 
and wrap him in your Strength, show him 
how sad a thing it is to be afraid, because 
it robs him of his power to win. 

Don't be content until you have given 
him all your loving help and tender sym- 
pathy, for if you do so you will know that 
you are growing in the right way. You 
will know that you are not building self- 
ishly for yourself, because you want 
greater power or success ; but only because 
Love shines so strongly that you cannot 
be happy unless you feel that you are 
building happiness and strength for others 
too. 



XIII 

MESSENGERS OF LOVE 

I THINK, that at night when you work 
within your shining Spirit-body, only 
those whose earthly bodies are asleep can 
see you as you pass, except just now and 
then it happens that the Spirit Eyes of 
some one who is still awake look, for a 
moment, through the earthly coverings. 

Then perhaps he says that an angel or 
a messenger from God appeared to him, 
because he saw the shining of the Spirit, 
and failed to understand that while the 
earthly bodies he asleep we all are walking 
in our angel clothes. 

He is wiser than he knows, for we are 
all angels, only some of us are lesser ones 
109 



110 LITTLE BUILDERS 

than others: we are all messengers from 
God, although we may forget the message 
He has trusted us to carry. 

"The message/' do you ask? 

I think the message He would have us 
bring is LOVE, and every time we bear 
it to our brothers, we are His messengers 
of Shining Light. It is only the blindness 
of our earth-filled eyes that makes us fail 
to see the Angel in each brother whom we 
meet. 

When those we love have laid aside their 
earthly coats and are what the world calls 
"dead," we speak of them as Angels, yet 
they were Angels just as much before. It 
was only that we could not see the shining 
of their Spirits, because the earthly coats 
lay in between. 

I want you always to remember to look 
inside the coat until you see the Angel's 
Light within, for an angel is only some 



LITTLE BUILDERS 111 

one who is learning to bring God's message 
to his brothers. 

Each Angel in his turn is helped by 
others who are nearer God, and they as 
well are guided by a Greater One above. 
There is no one, however frail or full of 
sin, no one however strong and pure of 
heart, who has no Guardian Angel to 
shelter him with wings of love. 

I think that if two people love, it is 
because their Angels have seen and loved 
each other first, and a picture of their love 
reflects within the hearts of the children 
whom they guard. So if you quarrel with 
the one you love, I fear you raise a veil of 
mist between two Angels' faces. 

Mist, grey mist of quarrelling and hate ! 
Blow it away with a tender breath of Love 
and let the Sunlight of their Joy be yours. 

Just as an Angel guards each one of us 



112 LITTLE BUILDERS 

with loving, watchful care, so I think that 
a little spirit watches over every flower and 
tree, who grieves when the flower is 
trampled on, or when the tree is rooted 
from the ground. 

I fancy that the little guardian paints 
each petal of a rose ; perhaps she lays her 
colour in the heart at eventide, and leaves 
it through the summer night, until the ten- 
der dew washes the rosy stain throughout 
the opened petals. 

I love to think that every little peep of 
green is watched by guardian spirits. 

What though you cannot see them? 
They are there! 

Little Spirit-Children who teach the 
acorn how to shoot, and guide the tender 
rootlets till they bore strong tunnels 
through the earth, tiny sprites who whis- 
per to the growing trees when budding- 
time draws near, pixies of the grassy 



LITTLE BUILDERS 113 

glades, elves of the mountain forests and 
fays of dancing streams and silver brooks. 
Perhaps you may be told that spirit- 
elves can have no real existence, that tales 
of fairies are not really true; but if you 
like to think that every little growing 
flower is cared for by some .tender sprite, 
you may remember that I love to think 
so too. 



XIV 

BY LOVE WE SERVE 

TO-NIGHT I want to speak of some- 
thing that may seem at first so simple 
and easy to understand that perhaps you 
will wonder why I have chosen it for one 
of our evening talks. 

But when I have finished I think that 
you will understand. 

I want to speak of Friendship and the 
Service it demands, and to show you that 
it is so precious and so real a thing that 
you must learn to treasure it as a tender 
flower that grows from God's own seed. 

By Friendship I do not mean the ordi- 
nary friendliness you feel for boys and 
girls with whom you work or play. I mean 
a rarer, deeper feeling of the heart, 
us 



116 LITTLE BUILDERS 

If when you meet a friend, something 
inside you seems to rise and sing, just as 
the lark upon the common yesterday rose 
at our feet and trilled its way to God, that 
is a call from some one for your love. 

Have you wondered sometimes why it 
is that you love one person, and yet pass 
another by? 

I think it is because you have known him 
in an earlier life than this; perhaps you 
may have helped him through some trouble 
in days of long ago, and though your mem- 
ory is clouded, yet the Love is clear. 

For Love is a flower that cannot die, 
because God plants it in your heart : each 
life it blossoms as a rose-tree buds when 
Spring awakes it from the winter sleep. 

You pass so many lives upon this dear, 
sweet earth — I have told you often that 
the Real You cannot die — you would not 
like to think you only came here once? 



LITTLE BUILDERS 117 

All your real true friends are people 
whom you loved and helped in many lives 
now past, and every happiness that they 
may bring you grows from Joy you gave 
them long ago. 

If you should meet an enemy who does 
you harm, remember that you must have 
hurt him in the past, and that it is your 
own unkindness coming back to you. But 
ever be ready to forgive, and you will 
make of him a friend instead, for he cannot 
frown for long within the sunshine of your 
love, and I think you understand that if 
you win him as your friend, he will love 
you in another life as well as this. 

It is easy enough to find a friend, but 
it is no simple thing to keep him after- 
wards, unless you bind him to you with 
silken threads of Love and willing Service. 

You will find, I think, that you cannot 
choose your friends, the real, true ones, 



118 LITTLE BUILDERS 

I mean. They are drawn to you as surely 
as steel is drawn toward a magnet, and 
just as all that is not really steel lies cold 
and lifeless to the magnet's call, so all who 
cannot answer to the Call of Service are 
not really of the Company of Friends. 

"Service" is the Password that every 
one must learn to meet the sentry's chal- 
lenge: Service alone calls forth the quiet 
welcoming "Pass, Friend" that greets an- 
other member of the army which he 
guards. 

When I speak of Service, I do not mean 
that you must watch for some great deed 
that needs performing, or you may find 
that while you watched you failed to do 
the many little acts of Service which 
united are of greater worth. 

Do the duty that is waiting close at 
hand, with not a thought of whether it be 
great or small: put your whole mind into 



LITTLE BUILDERS 119 

it that you may do it just as well as you 
are able, so that when some day a larger 
call for Service comes which needs all your 
Will and Courage to perform, you can 
rise and face it like a man, because you 
learnt to give the best you had in the 
smaller Service of the past. 

Make yourself fit to serve, and God will 
send the work for you to do: if it seem 
hard you must be proud to think that He 
has found that you have power to do so 
difficult a task, and if you fail, remember 
that such failure is an opportunity for you 
to grow in courage. 

There is no shame in failure if you have 
done your best, the shame lies only in the 
cowardice that will not rise to fight a sec- 
ond time. 

Never grumble because you think that 
you have no chance to "carve your way"; 
perhaps the work that God would have 



120 LITTLE BUILDERS 

you do is to smooth a way for others. 
Perhaps He wants you to make the road 
a little softer for their feet, and not that 
you should try to struggle up to mountain 
peaks. Perhaps He means you to bring 
sunshine into empty, lonely lives, and not 
that you should claim your share of Joy: 
perhaps He would have you hide the 
faults of others, tenderly and gently with 
your love, and not that all your thinking 
should be turned upon yourself. 

Oh, little builder of a Castle, I would 
have you learn that you are here to serve 
others, not to be served : that you are here 
to give, not to take : that you are here to 
make beautiful the lives of others, not to 
build a world of Beauty for yourself. 

I want you to make every day a little 
life of Service. Don't look back upon the 
good or bad deeds of the past, don't let the 
memory of them weigh upon your mind; 



LITTLE BUILDERS 121 

but start each day with a clean slate, and 
see that you write on it some deed of Lov- 
ing Service before the sun has set, for if 
you spend each day in the service of your 
brothers, you will find that you have spent 
your life in serving God. 

Such Service will write its Beauty on 
your heart, so that all who are lonely and 
weary, helpless and loveless, will be drawn 
to you for comfort, and you will not have 
to look for ways to serve, for ways will 
crowd upon you as your love of Service 
grows. 

Every morning when you rise, say to 
yourself quietly and reverently, 

"BY LOVE WE SERVE," 
and every night look back to see if Love 
and Service walked with you that day. 
"BY LOVE WE SERVE." 

Think of the thousand little unremem- 
bered ways to serve that pass unnoticed 



122 LITTLE BUILDERS 

in your life! Each is a seed from which 
the Flower of Friendship might have 
grown, each is a Pearl that you might have 
strung upon your thread of Life. 

Treasure each Pearl and every tiny 
Seed, — 

"By Love we serve." There is no other 
way. 






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